


Lost in Translation

by acatalepsy



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Bisexual Yasmin Khan, Gallifreyan, Gen, Gratuitous References to the Twilight Saga, Post-Episode: s11e02 The Ghost Monument, Probably more angsty than it deserves to be, Translation Circuit Broken
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-01
Updated: 2018-11-01
Packaged: 2019-08-14 04:18:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,702
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16485782
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/acatalepsy/pseuds/acatalepsy
Summary: “Sorry, but are we s’posed to be understanding what you’re saying right now, Doc? ’Cause I gotta be honest with you we have absolutely no clue what you’re saying.”———While the Doctor is trying to get the TARDIS Team back to Sheffield, antics temporarily ensue when it appears that the ship's translation circuit has started malfunctioning.





	Lost in Translation

**Author's Note:**

> just bashed this out as my day one for nanowrimo — dunno how much i'm gonna be able to write this month but since i just finished uni for the year i should be able to start posting more!
> 
> also writing in yaz' pov? really allows me to express my gayest, most authentic self. amazing.
> 
> if you have any fic requests you can send them through to @jodiewhittaker on tumblr ::)

“Well, you know what they say—”

Ryan cuts in with a groan before the Doctor can finish.

“Eighth time’s the charm!”

“No one says that,” Ryan shakes his head from where he’s sitting, leaned up against one of the TARDIS’ crystalline pillars, faintly illuminated by its bright golden glow.

“Maybe back on Earth they don’t.”

“‘Bet Gelfreerians don’t say it either.”

“ _Gallifreyans_. And you don’t know that!”

As the two bicker back and forth Yaz can’t but crack a smile at the absurd nature of their situation.

Maybe she’s just feeling the after effects of Desolation. Narrowly escaping your own death on a foreign alien planet after very nearly suffocating in the vacuum of deep space tends to do that to you. _Really_ puts things into perspective. Even if ‘perspective’ means not being completely freaked out by the fact that you’re currently hurtling through time and space at incomprehensible speeds in a ship that for some reason looks like an old-timey police box and is currently being piloted by an alien who looks like a human woman but actually _isn’t_ a human woman, and who is also quite frankly incredibly adorable. 

Watching the Doctor crank levers, flip hourglasses, and activate pulley systems hasn’t managed to lose its novelty yet and Yaz is still buzzing with excitement. They’ve only been in the ship for maybe five hours so far, she’d guess. It’s hard to keep track but it helps to view the whole thing as a sort of surreal road trip, just with more … unpredictable destinations.

However, despite this and the added afterglow of an incredibly fortuitous collection of near-death experiences, Yaz is already starting to feel a little motion sick. Her grip remains tight on the console, clinging on for dear life as Doctor dashes about, grappling with the controls like she’s playing some sort of complex alien game of Whack-a-Mole. First time flying in the TARDIS was thrilling, she’d admit, like a roller-coaster — but the eighth trip in a row … ? Graham looks similarly disheveled, tinged a faint green and Yaz winces in sympathy. 

“The more time that passes the more I _really_ get the impression that you don’t know how to fly this thing, Doc.”

“The TARDIS is not a _thing_ , Graham.” The Doctor says pointedly. “And _she_ thinks I’m a wonderful driver. Isn’t that right, Sexy?” She runs a hand over the console.

Yaz splutters. “Sexy?”

“… She likes it.”

Ryan shoots Yaz a grin, waggling his eyebrows and she can feel herself blush furiously. 

“You know what? I’m not even gonna—“ she starts, but she’s interrupted by the flickering of the ship’s lights. A sudden high pitched ringing fills her ears, piercing and overwhelming.

She doubles over in pain just as Ryan lets out a yelp and clamps his hands over his ears as well while Graham screws his eyes shut against the strobing of the lights.

Just when the sound is growing to be unbearable though, it vanishes as quickly as it came. The TARDIS seems to still.

“What—“ Yaz pauses to right herself and let out a shaky breath of relief. “Was _that_?”

“Did I make her mad or somethin’?” Ryan stammers. “‘Cause if this is about insulting your flying skills or calling her a ‘thing’ I’m really _really_ sorry.” He awkwardly pats the pillar he’s leaning on a couple of times.

When the Doctor doesn’t immediately reply, though, a quizzical look upon her face as she looks between them, Ryan quickly continues.

“I didn’t touch anything, if that’s what you’re thinking! ‘Promise.”

The Doctor then laughs and shakes her head, but when she goes to open her mouth instead of anything close to English what comes out is some sort of peculiar, oddly musical language. Yaz has never heard anything like it in her life. It’s beautiful.

She looks to Ryan and Graham for acknowledgement but it doesn’t look like they’ve noticed anything weird. For a moment she wonders if she just imagined it.

But then the Doctor speaks again, with those same musical tones, like she doesn’t notice anything different about what she’s saying at all. If Yaz had to hazard a guess from the slight upturn of her phrase and the way it lilts at the end, it probably means she’s asking a question.

She shakes her head. “What?”

The Doctor then frowns, a small crease forming on her forehead. She repeats herself and turns to Graham and Ryan as if they might be able to answer her.

Ryan opens and closes his mouth wordlessly for a few seconds before replying with an incredibly articulate, “Uh …”

“Sorry, but are we s’posed to be understanding what you’re saying right now, Doc? ’Cause I gotta be honest with you we have absolutely no clue what you’re saying.”

“Oh!” She suddenly exclaims and then slaps her forehead, probably a bit too hard, before shoving her hand into her coat pocket, rummaging around and bringing out her sonic.

She gives the console a quick scan before examining the device with scrutiny, scrunching her face up in confusion before pocketing it once more. It’s at this point that she suddenly bounds over to Yaz and grips her by the shoulders, starts rapidly talking in that peculiar foreign dialect again with that same musical lilt.

For some reason this recalls a very specific memory from when she was in Year 6 and going through a phase where she would bring Twilight with her to school every day. At the time she wasn’t really sure if she liked it so much because she had a crush on Bella or Edward more but either way her friends would tease her mercilessly for it. What she’s thinking about now is that there’s this one specific passage where Bella’s laugh is described as sounding like ‘wind chimes’ which at the time even _she_ thought was a bit dumb because how on Earth can someone _sound_ like wind chimes?

Well — perhaps Stephanie Meyer was onto something after all because that is the only human approximation Yaz can use to describe what she’s hearing right now. The Doctor sounds like wind chimes. Or something similar to that. Airy and melodious. Either way it’s breathtakingly ethereal and the added proximity of the Doctor having grabbed her by the shoulders to spin her around isn’t helping things at all. She can feel her face heating up again. God, help her.

Yaz blinks rapidly and shakes her head. _Get it together, Yaz._ “Doctor, I — Am I _supposed_ to be understanding what you’re saying right now?”

“Hah!” The Doctor claps her hands together, beaming. “I knew it! Translation circuit definitely isn’t broken then.”

“It’s … _not_ broken?” Ryan crosses his arms, skeptical. “‘Pretty sure whatever you were saying just then wasn’t English.”

“Excellent observation there, Ryan.” The sonic’s out again.

“What kind of language was that?” Graham asks as the Doctor strides over to him and begins scanning the back of his neck. “Was that Time Lord?”

“Yup. Gallifreyan, specifically.”

“Do you even speak English?” Ryan frowns.

“I am now, aren’t I?”

“But — I thought you said the ‘translation circuit’ _wasn’t_ broken?”

“It isn’t.”

“Sorry, Doc. But I’m completely lost.” Graham shakes his head. Yaz can practically see the cogs turning in his head as if he’s having another temporary freak-out over the fact that he’s having a legitimate discussion with an alien about telepathic translation devices. She’s had about a hundred of those in the past twenty-four hours.

“The reason you couldn’t understand me before is because —“ The Doctor’s sonic gives a quick whirr and then there’s a spark of electricity.

“Ah!” Graham exclaims, hand flying to the back of his neck. “How’s about a word of warning next time, eh?”

The Doctor clears her throat, shoots Graham a quick sympathetic look. “— Is because of these!”

She holds up an almost imperceptibly small microchip. The paper-thin metal glistens in the soft amber light.

“Universal translators you picked up in the medipods back on Angstrom and Epzo’s ships. Unfortunately they aren’t all that compatible with TARDIS technology. Seems as if they got stuck in some sort of feedback loop.”

As she’s saying this she’s doing the same thing for Ryan, using her screwdriver to disable his implant.

“But you _do_ speak English?” Ryan asks again, rubbing his own neck now.

“‘Course I do! Been travelling around Earth for thousands of years and you think that by now I wouldn’t have picked up English? I know about a billion languages — give or take. In fact, I can even speak Klingon.”

“Awesome,” he grins.

“The way the translation circuit works on the TARDIS is a little bit different to universal translators. She’s telepathic, so any language I know she’ll automatically translate for all of you.” She gazes up at the time rotor proudly, hands on her hips. “Quite literally a partial neural transfer from my Time Lord brain to your human brains. Try not to think about that too hard.”

“So before, when you were speaking Gallifreyan to us …” Yaz starts.

“Ah, well …” the Doctor rubs the back of her neck, looking at her feet. “Reminds me of home. ‘Bit of a habit of mine to speak in my mother tongue while in the TARDIS.”

She shakes her head quickly, as if quite literally trying to shake off her sadness as she moves over to Yaz.

“You shouldn’t feel ashamed, Doctor,” she says as the Doctor brushes her hair out of the way to access the chip. “I can’t imagine what it would feel like to not have anyone around to speak my native language to. It must be lonely.”

“Yeah, well … ‘Kinda used to it.” The Doctor hums quietly, disabling the chip with another quick whirr of her sonic.

“It was beautiful by the way. Like a song, or something out of an old nursery rhyme.”

“Thank you.”

“I’m sure in comparison English sounds rubbish,” Graham chuckles.

This manages to make the Doctor crack a smile again which in turn makes Yaz’ heart feel like it might actually legitimately flutter.

“Well, I wouldn’t go so far as to say it’s _rubbish_. But maybe I’m a _tad_ biased. You humans have far too many consonant sounds. Now. How’s about that eighth time round, hm?”

 


End file.
